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Wurdi Youang: an Australian Aboriginal Stone Arrangement with Possible Solar Indications

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Wurdi Youang: an Australian Aboriginal Stone Arrangement with Possible Solar Indications Wurdi Youang: an Australian Aboriginal stone arrangement with possible solar indications. Ray P. Norris1;2, Cilla Norris3, Duane W. Hamacher1;5, Reg Abrahams4 1 Department of Indigenous Studies, Macquarie University, NSW, 2109, Australia 2 CSIRO Astronomy & Space Science, PO Box 76, Epping, NSW, 1710, Australia email: [email protected] 3 Emu Dreaming, PO Box 4335, North Rocks, NSW, 2154, Australia 4 Wathaurong Aboriginal Cooperative, Lot 62, Morgan Street, North Geelong, Vic 3215, Australia 5 Nura Gili Centre for Indigenous Programs, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia Submitted to Rock Art Research 18 August 2011; this version 28 Sep 2012 Abstract: Wurdi Youang is an egg-shaped Aboriginal stone arrangement in Victo- ria, Australia. Here we present a new survey of the site, and show that its major axis is aligned within a few degrees of east-west. We confirm a previous hypothesis that it contains alignments to the position on the horizon of the setting sun at the equinox and the solstices, and show that two independent sets of indicators are aligned in these directions. We show that these alignments are unlikely to have arisen by chance, and instead the builders of this stone arrangement appear to have deliberately aligned the site on astronomically significant positions. Keywords: Cultural astronomy | Aboriginal astronomy | Aboriginal culture | stone ar- ragements 1 Introduction tures in Australia, and it is dangerous to assume similarities between them. On the other hand, it 1.1 Aboriginal Astronomy is important to acknowledge that in some cases there are some similarities. For example, the as- It is well established that the night sky plays an sociation of Orion with a young man or group of important role in many Australian Aboriginal cul- males, and the association of the Pleiades with a tures (Stanbridge 1861; Mountford 1956; Haynes group of girls, are found in many Aboriginal cul- 1992; Johnson 1998; Cairns & Harney 2003; Norris tures across Australia. In this paper we focus en- & Norris 2009; Norris & Hamacher 2009, 2011). As tirely on the builders of the Wurdi Youang Stone well as being associated with traditional songs and Arrangement, the Wathaurong people, and do not ceremonies, the sky is used to regulate calendars, assume any similarities with other Aboriginal cul- and mark the time of year when a particular food tures, although we refer to them to set context. source appears. The sky also had practical appli- cations for navigation and time keeping (Cairns & Harney 2003; Clarke 1997), and there is evidence of 1.2 Stone Arrangements a search for meaning in astronomical phenomena such as eclipses, planetary motions and tides (Nor- Stone arrangements were constructed by several ris & Hamacher 2009). Astronomical themes are Indigenous cultures across Australia, and include also widespread in ceremonies and artefacts, such many different morphologies (e.g. circles, lines, arXiv:1210.7000v1 [physics.hist-ph] 25 Oct 2012 as the Morning Star pole used in Yolngu ceremony pathways, standing stones, and cairns; Enright (1937); (Norris & Norris 2009; Allen 1975) and in depic- Towle (1939); Palmer (1977); Lane & Fullager tions of constellations such as Scorpius in bark (1980); Frankel (1982); Attenbrow (2002)). Some paintings (ibid.). What is not well-established is appear to have a practical purpose (e.g. fish traps, whether any measurements were ever made of the land boundaries) and others a ceremonial purpose positions of the celestial bodies, nor whether there (e.g. initiation and burial). They are often associ- is any ethnographic reference to the solstices or ated with other Aboriginal artefacts such as rock equinoxes. engravings, scarred trees, and axe grinding grooves There are about 400 different Aboriginal cul- (e.g. Lane & Fullager 1980; Lane 2009). 1 2 Stone arrangements vary in size from a metre Wurdi Youang consists of a roughly egg{shaped to hundreds of metres in length, and are typically ring of about 100 basalt stones, about 50 m in di- constructed from local rocks that are small and ameter along the major axis, which is aligned east{ could be carried by one or two people, although west. The stones range from small rocks about occasionally they can weigh as much as 500 kg 0.2 m in diameter to standing stones up to 0.75 m (Lane & Fullager 1980; Long & Schell 1999). Cer- high, some of which appear to be supported with emonial stone arrangements are commonly found trigger stones. Lane & Fullager (1980) estimate on ridges and hilltops that command a panoramic their combined mass to be about 23 tonnes. They view of the surrounding landscape (Hamacher et all appear to be potentially movable, rather than al 2012). McCarthy (1940) suggests that stone being part of the bedrock. arrangements used for ceremonial purposes incor- Particularly prominent are a group of three porate the surrounding landscape, and may indi- large stones, about 0.6 m high, at the western end cate the direction of a landmark, or mimic a land of the stone arrangement. They are located at the feature. highest point of the stone arrangement, which is While only 30 stone arrangements are recorded built on land that slopes downwards from its west- in Victoria (Marshall & Webb 1999), more are ern end to its eastern end, with a total fall across known to the authors, and Lane (2009) claims the arrangement of about four metres. that hundreds exist in western Victoria. Unfor- While there exists no eyewitness record of the tunately, no known ethnographic records or oral stone arrangement being constructed or used by histories exist about these arrangements, possibly the local Wathaurong people, the site is consid- because Aboriginal communities consider sites to ered Aboriginal in origin for the following reasons be sacred and secret to outsiders (McBryde 1974). (Aboriginal Affairs Victoria 2003): • Similar stone arrangements are known to oc- 1.3 Wurdi Youang cur elsewhere in Victoria, although none are The Wurdi Youang stone arrangement, also known known that exactly resemble Wurdi Youang as the Mount Rothwell Archaeological Site, is shown (e.g. Massola 1963); in Fig.1. It lies near the small town of Little River, • The stone arrangement is on a property that between Melbourne and Geelong, and was declared has been owned by a single family since first a protected site in 1977 by the Victorian Archaeo- settlement, and the family tradition rules out logical Survey (AAV Site No. 7922-001). The site a European origin (Lane & Fullager 1980); is traditionally owned by the Wathaurong people (also known as Wada Wurrung), whose land ex- • The arrangement has no known counterpart tends westward from the Werribee River to Fiery among colonial structures: it is on rocky ground Creek beyond Skipton, and northward from the with no commercial or agricultural value, it south coast to the watershed of the Great Divid- would not have been suitable for defining the ing Range north of Ballarat. To protect the site, boundaries of a sheep dip, sheep pen, or cat- the precise location is not given here, but access tle dip, and there is no evidence that it ever may be gained after obtaining permission from the formed part of a fence or building (Lane & traditional owners via Aboriginal Affairs Victoria. Fullager 1980); • The Wathaurong owners have traditional knowl- edge regarding the sanctity of the site (Mar- shall & Webb 1999). In addition, Aboriginal artefacts have been found on the site by the Wathaurong owners. Its construction date is unknown. Aboriginal people are believed to have inhabited the area from about 25 000 BCE (Clark 1990) to about 1835 when the area was occupied by European settlers (Clark 1995). It has been suggested (Morieson 1994) that the name \Wurdi" means \plenty of people", and Youang means \bald" or \mountain", which is presumably related to the nearby moun- tain range named the \You Yangs". Alternatively, Figure 1 Aerial view of the Wurdi Youang site, re- Morieson (2003) suggested that the name \Wurdi" produced with permission from Marshall & Webb may be related to the Woiwurrung word \Wurd- (1999), looking west. ing" meaning abalone, and that the shape of the 3 stone arrangement may be intended to resemble Moreover, stars are not stationary, but move an abalone shell, or possibly another mollusc, in relative to their neighbours. This effect, dubbed which case it may be conjectured that the site was `stellar proper motion', causes the stars to shift used for increase rituals. However, these sugges- their apparent position relative to each other over tions must be weighed against the distance (18km) time. For example, the familiar shape of the South- of the site from the nearest major body of salt- ern Cross would have looked significantly different water (Port Phillip Bay) where abalone could be 10000 years ago. found. Unlike the positions of stars, the declinations of The vegetation around Wurdi Young is cur- the Sun and Moon, and hence their rising and set- rently low and scrubby, and may have been much ting positions, are unaffected by this precession. higher before European occupation, perhaps even However, the apparent declination of the Sun is obscuring the view of the setting Sun. However, affected by a much smaller effect, the nutation in we also note the common Aboriginal practice of the obliquity of the Earth's rotational axis, which periodically clearing land by fire when necessary, varies by about 2.4◦ over a period of 41000 years. as part of standard Aboriginal land management Because the alignments discussed here are accu- practices (Clarke 2007; Gammage 2011), so it is rate to a few degrees, such variations will have no equally possible that the vegetation was removed. measurable effect on these alignments. If this site was used to observe the position of the Since the construction date has no measurable setting Sun, then any such growth would have had effect on the rising and setting positions of the Sun, to be cleared in those directions.
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